


The Follow-Up Record

by foojules



Category: Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: 1980s nostalgia, Canon Continuation, F/M, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, mixtapes? I got mixtapes, no Miami Vice tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 01:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foojules/pseuds/foojules
Summary: "But part of her still wouldn’t believe she’d ever get to keep anything that made her happy. It was like as long as she didn’t really have Park, she couldn’t lose him."What happened next.





	The Follow-Up Record

## eleanor

They wrote.

At first it was just writing, Eleanor imagining Park’s American-Peter-Gabriel voice coming off the sheets of lined paper he sent. His handwriting was like the lettering in a comic, all caps with strong lines, except messier. When she read it she could see his hand forming the letters, his long slender fingers gripping the black pen. She could see the play of muscles in his forearm.

Then he sent a tape.

Then she sent one back.

Her uncle had records she’d never heard before, a lot of Motown and Stax Records titles—he was thirteen years older than her mom, and he’d been into jazz and R&B when he was younger. Aunt Susan’s family was from down South, and she had records too, stuff she’d grown up with. Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette. When Eleanor listened to them, it was like they were singing her life. Like she was listening to someone talk about being stuck in a situation as grim as hers had been, and they didn’t know how to get out but sang anyway. She couldn’t listen for too long...but she always came back to them.

She wasn’t sure about sending Park a tape made from those records. He hated country music.

But when she finally did, he wrote back that he loved it.

## park

What he really wanted to do was get in the Impala and drive it to St. Paul. Just show up on her uncle’s doorstep. It would almost be worth being grounded for the rest of his life (or at least until he went to college).

But it wouldn’t be worth spooking Eleanor. Park felt like she was like some feral cat he’d been feeding, who’d bolt if you tried to pet her. Sometimes he thought that was stupid, like when she wrote about the guy who worked at the comic shop near her house (her aunt and uncle’s house. Which was her house now, which Park had to keep reminding himself). The guy always had stains on his shirts, and whenever Eleanor went into the shop he treated her like she was invading his personal kingdom. _Isn’t he supposed to be_ nice _to customers?_ she wrote. _I know I’m a girl, but I can still_ like _things. Whatever, he’s old enough to be mostly bald and he probably still lives in his mom’s basement._

Park wanted to kick that guy. But if she could shrug stuff like that off, then she must be doing okay. She couldn’t be any more fragile than when Park had left her. That must have pretty much been the bottom. Right?

But he couldn’t be sure. And he could never be sure she wouldn’t disappear again, so he never mentioned her long silence. Never asked why.

She didn’t bring it up either. She didn’t bring up a lot of things. In one letter, near the end of the summer before senior year, he asked her for her uncle’s phone number. He could have gotten it from directory assistance, but he wanted to make sure she was okay with it before he called. When she wrote back, not only did she not give him her number, she didn’t refer to it at all...as though he hadn’t even asked.

So he asked again. He needed to hear her voice. He thought—he wasn’t sure, but he suspected—that he might have forgotten what it sounded like. That the Eleanor-voice he heard in his head wasn’t really hers, but an echo that had bounced back and forth and back and forth until it sounded like someone else entirely.

## eleanor

Eleanor’s mom had never asked her to come back to Omaha, even after she’d gotten her own place with Eleanor’s brothers and sister. Maybe she figured Eleanor would only refuse. Once bitten, twice shy. Or she had enough on her plate with four kids and an ex-husband who still occasionally violated the restraining order.

Anyway. It’s not like Eleanor would have gone to the same school, and it would have really sucked having to be the new girl again for the third year in a row. For senior year, no less. And even though she wanted to see Park—really, really wanted to see him—at the same time, she sort of didn't. What if it wasn't the same as before? What if seeing him was just the beginning of the end? She couldn’t even bring herself to let him call her. _God_.

It got to the point where every letter, he’d wind up with a request for her phone number. It was like their sign-off. Couldn’t he take a hint?

Finally she told him she didn’t want him running up his parents’ long distance bill on her account. They must already think she was bonkers. He wrote back—like, two days later, which was fast even for him—that he’d already told them he’d pay for the calls. So she wrote that she didn’t want him spending his money on something as lame as talking. And he wrote back that it was what he wanted to spend his money on. That it was the only thing he wanted.

So she gave in. As soon as she dropped the letter with her aunt and uncle’s phone number in the mail (she’d purposely used the blue mailbox on the corner, so she couldn’t take it back) she felt a deep sense of relief, but also a deep sense of panic. She went home and unplugged the phone in her bedroom.

Two nights later, she was reading when her uncle knocked on her bedroom door and opened it just wide enough to stick his head inside. “Phone for you,” he said. He looked a little surprised. Uncle Geoff looked a little surprised at anything to do with Eleanor, as though her presence itself was a mild shock every time he was reminded of it. But he was okay. He was nice.

She waited for Uncle Geoff to head down the hall before plugging her extension back in, then waited until she was sure he was downstairs before she picked up. “I’ve got it,” she said, and listened for the click as he put down the receiver.

A beat of silence.

“Hey,” Park said, and she almost started bawling.

She took a breath—he had to be able to hear how shaky it was—and tried squeezing her eyes shut, but the tears popped out anyway. She let them roll down her cheeks and concentrated on steadying her voice. “Hi.”

There was another long, empty moment, and Eleanor had a sudden horrible feeling that this would be it. That they wouldn’t be able to find any words between them.

Then Park said, “You sound just like I remember you.” There was such relief in his voice. It told her that he’d been afraid too, and he had more reason to be: after all, she was the one who hadn’t answered his letters for a year. His fear made her brave.

“You do too,” she said. “I wonder if we really sound the same, or if we’re just making it up.”

“I don’t care. I’m just happy to be talking to you.”

“Me too. But it’s costing you twenty-five cents a minute, so we’d better talk about something important.”

“Like what?” he asked. “World peace? George Bush?”

“Oh, God, not him.”

Park lowered his voice almost to a whisper, but with a rumble in it, a depth. “I love you.”

She couldn’t handle Park saying he loved her. Not like this, so soon, when she hadn't heard his voice in over a year. It was like someone had reached inside her chest and taken ahold of her heart. Not squeezed, just kind of gently handled it. “Yeah?” she breathed, which was about all she could manage.

“Yeah.”

She wanted to say, _Really? Why?_ but instead she said, “Thank you.”

And immediately felt like an idiot. Park gave a little laugh and said in a teasing voice that wasn’t really teasing, “You know, you’ve never said it to me.”

“I’ve written it.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“How does that not count?” Now she felt indignation rising, and that made her feel more in control of herself. “I’ll have you know, I _agonized_ over whether to put _Love, Eleanor_ or _Sincerely, Eleanor_ on all those letters...or _LYLAS_ …”

“Jesus. I’m so glad you didn’t put _LYLAS_.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been true. I do, you know. Just not like a sister.” _And I can’t say it,_ she thought. She couldn’t make the words come out of her mouth. So stupid. They were such short words.

“Well, good,” Park said. “I guess I can say it enough for both of us.”

## park

Park’s dad refused to even let him apply to the University of Minnesota. “It’s almost twice as much for out-of-state tuition,” he said, “and it’s still just a state school. You want to make me spend an arm and a leg on your college, get into Harvard.”

There was no way Park was getting into Harvard. And he wouldn’t want to, not unless Eleanor was going. “It’s okay,” Eleanor said on the phone. “We can visit each other.”

“I could visit you now,” Park said. So far his dad wouldn’t even think about letting him drive all the way to Minnesota again, but he’d get his mom to work on it. Maybe by summer his dad would soften up.

Maybe Eleanor would.

She always got all wishy-washy when he talked about them seeing each other. Like tonight, she said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure how my aunt and uncle would feel about you staying here.”

“I could stay somewhere else. I could get a hotel room.” When he thought about bringing Eleanor to a hotel (and let's not kid ourselves, if he got a room he'd definitely be taking Eleanor there) his body seemed to go numb and catch fire at the same time.

“I don’t think they’ll let you rent a hotel room if you’re under twenty-one,” Eleanor said. “Anyway, I have work every weekend.” Then she changed the subject to ask whether he’d been able to get the new Sonic Youth album yet and if so, could he dub her a copy? (He had, and he would.)

It wasn’t that she didn’t like/love him anymore. He knew she did: she wrote to him at least twice a week, sometimes more, since she couldn’t call him as often as he did her. Park didn’t know what the problem was, and he couldn’t get her to tell him.

## eleanor

It was practically a superstition at this point. Eleanor was sure that when she and Park faced each other, he wouldn’t be able to avoid seeing that something was missing. Maybe it was her damaged-ness that had attracted him to her in the first place. Which she knew was dumb; they’d found each other in spite of her terrible life, not because of it. And now that her life wasn’t terrible anymore, she had every reason to expect that her and Park’s relationship would be smooth sailing. Or as smooth as it could be with the two of them almost four hundred miles apart.

But part of her still wouldn’t believe she’d ever get to keep anything that made her happy. It was like as long as she didn’t really have Park, she couldn’t lose him.

Her mom had said they might come up to St. Paul for Christmas, but then she called the day before Christmas Eve saying her car had broken down. The next week a package arrived with presents, all with price tags from Goodwill: a rhinestone-studded cardigan, a stenciling kit from Ben, a paperback of _A Wrinkle in Time_ from Maisie, a John Audubon calendar from Mouse. It was last year’s, but Eleanor could tear out the pictures and stick them on the wall. The baby—Eleanor hoped they called him something besides Little Richie—had drawn her a card with a picture of a Christmas tree on it, red blobs on overlapping green triangles. Eleanor hoped they had a tree.

There was a note from her mother, saying that maybe Eleanor could come down for a week or two the next summer. Eleanor crumpled it up and threw it away with the wrapping paper.

## park

In April Park’s mom informed Park and Josh that they were going to Korea for four weeks in June and July.

“What?” Park said, horrified. He’d been hoping to work at Drastic Plastic again all summer. For gas money. “Why? We’ve never gone before now.”

“That exactly it,” his mom said. “You boys need to see where family come from.”

Park’s dad was on board too. He was taking his first vacation in years. “You’re gonna love the food,” he told Park and Josh.

Park’s mom never cooked Korean food. The only time he’d eaten it was the time his grandparents had taken them to a Korean restaurant and Park had accidentally ordered jjamppong, which was so spicy it gave him a stomachache for two days.

“If I go to Korea, will you let me drive up to St. Paul after we get back?” Park asked.

“This isn’t a negotiation,” his dad said.

The trip ended up being pretty incredible, though. Overwhelming and eye-opening and emotional. His mom had gotten in touch with a couple of her siblings, who had families of their own, kids a little younger than Park and Josh. Cousins Park never even knew existed. None of them spoke English, so they just smiled and nodded at each other a lot. Park had never been anywhere where everyone spoke a foreign language, though of course it wasn’t foreign there—he was the foreign one. It was so weird to watch his mom speaking Korean, how she seemed different, more confident. In Seoul she was the one who handled everything, who hailed cabs and ordered in restaurants and knew what to do. She ushered Park and Josh and their dad around the city like a tour guide. It had to have been hard for her, coming to the States at eighteen and not knowing anything. It must have seemed to her as though the only thing to do was become as much like the people around her as possible.

Park had so much he couldn’t wait to tell Eleanor.

## eleanor

Eleanor didn’t go to Omaha the summer after she graduated. She told her mom she had to work, which was true. “Uncle Geoff and Aunt Susan are already paying for my tuition and the dorm and everything,” she said. “I want to at least be able to buy my own books.”

“Oh, of course,” her mom said. It would have been nice if she’d offered to send Eleanor some money, not that Eleanor would take it, but she didn’t. She talked about what the little kids were up to until it was time to get off the phone.

Eleanor’s roommate at college was named Jennifer Jackson. Jen was Korean, but she had white parents. They’d adopted her through an international agency when she was a toddler, and she said she didn’t remember anything about Korea or her birth parents. She wanted to be a fashion designer and listened to a lot of French pop from the sixties. She wouldn’t wear anything with a brand name visible on it. She even cut the labels off her jeans.

Eleanor wondered what it meant that she’d just happened to get a roommate who was Korean but spoke with an American accent (though it wasn’t as if having Asian features had any effect on the way someone talked) and who always wore black. Probably it didn’t mean anything.

For her final project in her fall Apparel Fundamentals class, Jen designed an A-line dress for Eleanor and sewed it out of material that was blue-gray in some lights and silver-green in others. In every light, Eleanor’s hair popped out like a stop sign in the woods. Her skin looked even whiter than it always did—it practically glowed.

(Jen got an A.)

Sometimes when Eleanor was alone in the room, she’d put on the dress and just look at herself in Jen’s full-length mirror for a while. What would Park’s mom say if she could see Eleanor in a dress? What would Park say?

   Eleanor smiled at the girl in the mirror, and thought that Park probably wouldn’t be able to say anything at all.

## park

Park’s spring break was the same week as Eleanor’s.

He already knew she wasn’t going anywhere, and though his roommate had tried to get him to go to Panama City Beach, Florida (“Chicks for days, man, and they’ll all be _wasted..._ ”) Park was staying put as well.

Or maybe not. He couldn’t stop thinking about driving up and surprising her. He thought he might detect a slight thaw: when he talked to her about spending the summer in the same place, maybe working in a resort town, she didn’t immediately change the subject.

He was done with classes by midmorning the Thursday before break. He had an eleven o’clock on Friday, but half the students probably wouldn’t show up. Making sure not to think too much about what he was doing, he threw some things into a duffel bag and filled the Impala’s gas tank. By lunchtime he was on the road.

## eleanor

She wouldn’t be able to put him off forever.

That’s what she was thinking that morning as she shuffled to class along the salt-streaked sidewalks, listening to one of his mix tapes on her Walkman.

It was ridiculous when you thought about it. He’d saved her life and she’d basically ignored him for a year, then strung him along for almost two more. It was cruel, is what it was. She’d been cruel. Was being.

He didn’t deserve it. She’d have to let him come to her, or let him go.

## park

He knew her room number, but once he got into the building he had to ask someone how to get to her hall. Her door was half open, and he had to stop right in the middle of the corridor until his heart slowed down.

There was a little chalkboard mounted on the outside of the door. Someone had drawn a picture of a horse running along the bottom of it. There were band flyers stuck underneath the chalkboard with blue tack, and a Lush sticker.

Park walked up to the door practically on tiptoe, like he was sneaking up on it. He knocked softly, then louder when there was no response.

“Come in!” sang out a voice that wasn’t Eleanor’s. Park still almost had a heart attack, but when he walked in he could see immediately that Eleanor wasn’t there. The room was tiny, and Serge Gainsbourg was playing at top volume. If Eleanor was in one of the lofted beds she was definitely hiding, not sleeping, and she wouldn’t have known to hide unless she’d seen Park from the window, which didn’t even overlook the street. It faced a courtyard where a few people stood hunched against the cold, smoking cigarettes.

He said, “Is Eleanor around?”

The Asian girl sitting at one of the desks twisted all the way around in her chair. When she saw him, her eyes widened and her mouth opened into an O shape. “Oh my God,” she half-shouted over the music, “are you _Park?_ ”

Her eyes flicked to the bulletin board over the other desk, where a bunch of snapshots were pinned around the edges. White girls with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Eleanor was in a few of them, even smiling in a couple. But the photo that drew his gaze was of himself. It was the one he’d sent Eleanor last year: his senior picture, the informal shot of him in a Bad Brains T-shirt.

The girl looked back at him and smiled. “Oh my God,” she said. “This is great.” She got up and, before he even knew what she was doing, hugged him. “It’s so cool to finally meet you.”

“Likewise,” Park said, though she hadn’t introduced herself.

“Eleanor’ll be back at like six fifteen, I think? She’s got a capella group on Thursdays.”

“A capella group?” Park couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “She never told me she was in an _a capella group._ ”

“Yeah, they’re really good,” the girl said. “Anyway. She usually comes back before I go to dinner. Did you want to wait?”

The girl’s smile had a predatory edge to it. Like if Park sat down, she wouldn’t stop asking him questions until she’d pried out every detail of his and Eleanor’s history. “Nah,” he said, “I’ll come back. Thanks, um…?”

“Jen.”

“Thanks, Jen.”

She gave him a sparkly grin. “Oh, you’re very welcome.”

## eleanor

Jen practically jumped on her as soon as she walked in the door of their room.

“ _Guess_ who's here!” she demanded.

“Huh?” Eleanor said. They'd learned a new song today, and the alto part was all over the place. She'd spent the walk home practicing it in her head, and she was still half in it.

“Guess who came by looking for you while you were at practice.”

“I don't know,” Eleanor said, and when Jen just grinned, “Morrissey.”

“Try again.”

Jen’s smile was starting to look like the Joker’s. Or the Cheshire cat’s. Eleanor sighed. “ _What_ ,” she said.

“Let’s just say I can understand why you haven’t dated anyone this year.”

“Because guys don’t like fat redheaded freaks?”

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Jen said, “you have an hourglass figure.”

“A giant hourglass.”

Jen tilted her head. “I personally would kill to have your boobs. _Anyway_. You can’t date, right? Because you have a boyfriend.”

“He’s not really my—”

Eleanor stopped.

A rushing noise filled her head, like the ocean—not that she’d ever heard the actual ocean—or TV static. Jen was still there, still smiling expectantly at her, but Eleanor kind of forgot about her for a minute.

Then she turned around and walked right out of the room.

She only got a few doors down the hall before her legs went rubbery. She leaned her back against the wall and slid down it to the floor. She could hear music coming from the half-open doors on either side of her. R.E.M. on the left. Blondie on the right. The guy across the hall was listening to classical. It was an interesting combination.

After a few minutes, she got up and went back into her room.

“Park was here?” she asked Jen, who nodded. “Right _here._ ”

“Right where you’re standing.”

Eleanor looked down, as though she expected to see flowers growing up through the floor.

“I told him when you’d be home,” Jen said, “and he said he’d come back.”

Jen was putting stuff into a suitcase. Black pants. Black skirt. Black sweater. Blow dryer. “What are you doing?” Eleanor asked.

“Um, packing? For New York?”

Everyone Eleanor knew who was traveling for spring break was going somewhere warm, except for Jen.

“I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow.”

“I figured I’d stay over at Mark’s tonight.” Mark was Jen’s boyfriend. He was two years older and lived in a big ramshackle house with a bunch of other guys. “Do you not want me to?” Jen stopped packing and looked at Eleanor.

“I don’t...know.” Eleanor had no idea what she wanted. She felt like her brain was stuffed with Jell-O. She couldn’t get her head around the idea of Park in this room. Just standing, on the floor. Park _here_. And if he came back, they’d be in the room at the same time. Together.

“You haven’t seen each other in what, two years?”

“Almost three.”

Jen shook her head. “That is crazy.”

Eleanor grimaced and twirled her finger around her ear. “You know me. Mayor of Crazytown.”

“I can see why you’d be nervous,” Jen said. “But you’re building it up in your head way too much. Once you’re actually together I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just, you know, hang out, listen to music, have sex…”

Oh God.

Jen was watching Eleanor with her chin tucked and eyebrows raised. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You guys have had sex, right?”

Eleanor shook her head. All the blood in her body had slammed upward into her face. She felt like steam was about to start shooting out of her ears.

“Awww!” Jen sounded like she’d stumbled across a box full of kittens. “So you get to _curate_ it. I’m kind of jealous. I was drunk Mark’s and my first time, and he had this, like, Norwegian death metal on. It really ruined the mood.”

Park wouldn’t play death metal. He probably had a mix tape all ready, with Al Green on it. And Clarence Carter.

 _God_.

Jen snapped her suitcase closed, grinning like she couldn’t stop. She hugged Eleanor. Jen was a hugger. “I’m gonna want to hear everything,” she said, and left.

Eleanor considered her options. She could lock the door and turn off all the lights until after finals. She could go down to the dining hall to avoid Park, then sleep under a shrub or in a doorway (she rejected that idea right away. Too cold). She could ask J.D., who lived in the room next door, to pretend to be her boyfriend.

Or she could stop being such an effing coward.

She didn’t know what to do with herself. She hung up her coat, then went over to the stereo and looked at her shelf full of tapes. Nothing seemed right.

She had her back to the door when a soft knock sounded. “Come in,” she said, even though it was open.

Then she turned around.

## park

Eleanor turned around.

At first he couldn’t even look at her straight on: he could only take in her outlines, the shock of red curls, the cello curves of her. She had on flared corduroys and a Western shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons.

Then his eyes met hers. He saw a flicker of sadness so deep it was almost happiness, like nostalgia for an era that hadn’t happened yet. He felt like his chest had a magnet in it that was pulling him toward her.

She swallowed and said, “You’re _taller_ than me,” sounding almost angry about it. Or maybe just overwhelmed at the sight of him. He was definitely overwhelmed at the sight of her.

“Yeah,” Park said. “I, uh, had a little bit of a growth spurt the last couple years of high school.” Three inches. Josh still towered over him...but now he found himself looking down at Eleanor. She was staring as though trying to memorize him, or maybe comparing the version of him she had in her head to the one in front of her. That’s what he was doing with her. He couldn’t help it.

It was almost unbearable to be in the same room and not touching her, but now that he’d come this far, he couldn’t make himself go two steps farther.

“I was about to put on some music,” she said, “but I couldn’t find anything.” She turned her shoulders a little more toward him and took a step closer.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked glowy, lit from within...sun-dappled even with the wintry dark outside. She was still looking at him with that terrible sadness in her eyes. He reached out and brushed the ends of her hair with his fingertips, then pulled back.

She made a little noise in her throat like she’d been pricked with a needle, and shot out her hand and grabbed his wrist and pulled him to her.

## eleanor

The first time, they didn’t even have a soundtrack. It was hardly a moment to stop and pick out the right tape.

As soon as Eleanor touched Park it was like he came alive. His arms wound around her, his fingers raking up the back of her neck into her hair. His mouth. Her mouth. All those nerve endings that had been dormant for three years came roaring back.

Her hands slid under his pea coat, under his shirt, seeking skin. She scratched him, gently, and he hummed into her mouth.

She’d thought about this. A lot. She’d thought about that time at his house, and in the back seat of his car, and in the truck. And she’d thought she remembered how it felt, but she really, really hadn’t. Her face must be doing some pretty comical things about now.

She opened her eyes. Park was breathing hard, his eyes gold-green slits. He still wore eyeliner. He smiled, and with his face and the eyeliner and the long black coat and the way he sort of loomed over her now, a little bit, he looked dangerous. He looked ready to eat her up.

“I want you to,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes fully and looked like himself again. “You want me to what?”

“I want us to. Be together.”

“Well, yeah.” He smiled. “That’s why I’m...oh. _Oh_.”

When Park blushed he didn’t get pink and blotchy like Eleanor: he just got a little rose in his gold. Like a sunset.

“Do you have...did you bring anything?”

He nodded, with a glance from the sides of his eyes like he was worried she’d think he was presumptuous.

She took her hands from around his waist and slid them up his chest, then grabbed the lapels of his coat and started pushing it off his shoulders. He shrugged his arms out of it, and it fell to the floor.

## park

 _Jesus_.

## eleanor

She couldn’t remember how they’d made it onto her loft bed. It seemed like it would have been awkward, negotiating their way up the ladder without even coming up for air. But they were in the bed, in a den made of mattress and wall and ceiling. The door was closed and locked, and they’d even managed to get all their clothes off. Which, now that she had time to think, made her want to curl up in embarrassment.

“Let me see you,” he whispered. “Please?” She rolled onto her back so her stomach would at least be a little bit flattened out. His eyes went over her like…like he was starving and she was a sandwich, was what she thought at first, but he kept glancing at her face, into her eyes. Checking in. “You're so beautiful,” he said.

Eleanor turned her face sideways. “Thanks,” she said into her pillow.

“You are.”

## park

On her stomach the skin was white and smooth and soft, with hardly any freckles. He kissed a lone one, just above her belly button. Then he kissed just below her belly button.

She had so many places he’d never touched before. Even the places he had touched seemed new again after so long. He wanted to put his hands everywhere, his mouth, he wanted to rub up against her like a neglected cat. He wanted to map her on his own skin so she'd be in muscle memory. So he could get her back whenever he wanted. Just in case.

He reminded himself there’d be other times, other chances. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of that not being true. But it crept in, and it made him feel like he needed to get all he could of Eleanor now. It would never be enough; if he let her get away again, she wouldn’t stay.

He knew for himself how quickly she faded.

## eleanor

“Eleanor?”

She couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t stop smiling.

“Eleanor? Are you okay?”

 _Okay_ didn’t even come close to describing her current state. She was pretty sure her body had dissolved into its component atoms, then reassembled itself in an improved configuration.

“You're starting to freak me out a little,” Park said.

“Sorry.” She opened her eyes, still smiling. “I’m fine.” _Fine_ wasn’t right either. “I’m terrific. I’m spectacular.” She moved her arm to put it around him. Her hand had teeth marks on it. She’d bitten it, to keep from letting the whole floor in on what they were doing. “How about you?”

He let his head drop onto her shoulder. His hair flopped next to her face, and she got a whiff of shampoo. “I’m...amazing.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, you are.”

## park

It was getting light outside. The tape Park had put in—at some point he’d gone down the ladder—had flipped sides in the tape deck several times. He hadn’t exactly been counting.

“Do we _have_ to leave this bed?”

“No. We live here now. This is our kingdom.”

“We’ll need to go out and get more condoms.”

“We still have seven. No wait, six. That should last us a few hours at least.”

“We’ll need to eat...”

“Not hungry.”

“We’ll have to go to the bathroom.”

“I just want to do this for the rest of our lives.”

“Me too.”

## eleanor

He raised his head.

He was looking at her with too much intensity. She couldn’t hold his gaze; it was like staring into the sun. She glanced away, but that hurt, so she looked back.

He kissed her. She probably had morning breath, even though they hadn’t really slept yet. She decided not to be self-conscious about it. He had it too, after all. She didn’t mind.

“We could do this for the rest of our lives,” he said. “We can.”

She kept kissing him. Put her arms around him. Nestled close until all of him pressed against all of her. But he pulled back and lay on his side, drawing her so that she lay on hers too, facing him. “Eleanor, will you marry me?”

She laughed. “What?”

“I’m serious.”

“Park...we’re nineteen.”

“It doesn’t have to be right now.”

“Well, yeah, no. We need to finish college at least.”

“But after that.”

She wondered why she was trying to think of a reason to say no. Why she couldn’t just accept that she could have him, and he could have her. They could have each other. Forever.

“At _least_ ,” she said.

“Of course.” He looked her in the eyes, and she could tell he wasn’t just saying it.

She took a breath, like she was about to dive into deep water. But it wasn’t murky. It was clear and sparkling, all the way down. “Okay,” she said.

He let out a sigh, the tension in his face loosening, and kissed her. “I still need to get you a ring. I didn’t exactly plan this.”

“You didn’t plan to seduce me? With a ten-pack of condoms in your coat pocket?”

“I didn’t plan to get engaged. I mean, not today. Down the road.”

She hoped he wasn’t regretting it already.

“But I knew...I mean, I hoped…”

Eleanor closed her eyes, so she could listen better.

“...that we’d end up together.”

## park

For the rest of the morning they talked about how they thought it would be. Some of what he whispered to her he borrowed from his parents (he couldn’t help it, he’d been watching them for the better part of twenty years). The constant making out. The thing where his dad always called out to his mom the second he arrived home, as though he couldn’t stand to extend their separation for the time it would take to find her in the house.

But some of it—most of it—was just his and Eleanor’s.


End file.
